BTW, the coolest thing I ever smoked on a grill was an open faced French style apple tarte tatin. That’s a pastry shell filled with custard and topped with cinnamon sugar apples. Man was that good.
Sorry, forgot to answer the original question – 250 degrees is not a problem with burgers. 300 is okay. Going 350 is pushing it because the meat will cook too rapidly and form a crust that prevents thorough smoking. Make time adjustments accordingly.
Here’s basically something to consider when smoking (and roasting and baking in general) – whatever temperature you smoke at, your food WILL eventually reach that temperature. You smoke at 160F, the food will eventually hit that. You smoke at 350F, your food will eventually reach that. The question is how long will it take and what will the consequences be?
Remember, it is the INTERNAL temperature of the meat that matters. Once meat reaches about 160F internally, it’s safe to eat. In theory, you could cook those burgers at 160F and never have to sear them the way Anton does… if you don’t mind waiting hours or possibly even days to eat. The problem is that if you take the meat off at any time before reaching 160F, other organisms like salmonella will have thrived under the heat that has not risen enough to kill it yet but stayed warm enough to help incubate it.
On the other hand, you could turn up the heat blazingly high to 400F or above and reach 160F internally within hours or even minutes… provided you don’t mind a carbonized exterior and really tough textured meat as the meat will cook far too fast.
225-250 degrees is the standard temperature for smoking and I have never had ANY problems smoking any food at that temperature – fish, meat, game, vegetables, even desserts. Of course, I then accept that this is an all day endeavor. Since I use a grill with a gas infrared searer (upon which I place the smoke box), I often cheat a bit by smoking at just below 300. This cuts down the time a lot. The meat is not fall off the bone fork tender like if it were at 225 for 14 hours but it’s still pretty tender and usually only takes an evening. I can more than live with that compromise.
I haven’t smoked burgers yet, but I think this is how I’ll do it. I might smoke them on the BGE and then finish/sear on my gas grill, just for the sake of convenience. What wood do you people use?
I’ve done it once on my BGE, and I didn’t much care for them. Used hickory because that’s what I had on hand, and the smoke flavor was just too much for me. I think I used a handful of hickory chips, just thrown on top of the lump.
I have cooked with several of the top pros in the US. Here is the best advice they ever gave me. Consider smoke as a spice, not a flavor. You want to use smoke as you would salt…too little and its bland, too much and its inedible.
All smoke is not created equal. If your cooker is belching white acrid smoke, your meats going to taste just like that smells if you stick your nose into it.
You want thin blue smoke, and that takes practice and time if you are simply adding wood chucks to lump. Chips almost always burn fast, hot and with white smoke.